It was the story Captain Billy told

 William H. Renahan, as a teenager, was a scout for the Union Army during the Civil War. He then came to Texas to work as a cowboy, freight hauler and buffalo hunter. He lived among the Cherokee for a while. He made some money as a railroad man. When he retired, “Captain Billy” settled in Alamo Heights, north of downtown San Antonio.

For a while, Renahan was a running buddy of Judge Roy Bean, purveyor of justice and whiskey beyond the Pecos.

Renahan said he once asked Bean: “Roy, I wonder where we would be now if we had our just dues?”

Bean replied: “In hell, I reckon.”

• Source: Paula Allen, “Frontiersman lived in Alamo Heights Home,” San Antonio Express-News, Sept. 11, 2022, p. A4. Allen’s column quotes a profile published in the San Antonio Light, May 22, 1939, when Renahan was nearing 90. If I were king for a day, I’d declare that every newspaper ought to have a column on local history. Allen’s is a good one.